Legend has it that Sylvantha was founded after the land was claimed from a powerful fey lord known as the Nocturn Prince; though the stories as to whether this land was acquired through a deal, seized through conquest, or as a reward for services rendered has been lost to time. Most scholars of the abnormal frequency of lycanthropy in the area suggest that curse of lycanthropy may have been sown across the land as a trick or punishment by the Nocturn Prince himself during the kingdom's early days.

In fact, it would seem that some sort of hard luck curse reigns over the kingdom itself, since it seemed intent on tearing itself apart since its conception. Never having any real threats from outside of their country, Sylvanthians have had a series of civil wars between their noble families, famines, floods, storms, outbreaks of lycanthropy, and the constant looming threat of necromantic cults and organized covens of vampires. Roughly a century ago, the land was beset by a great plague that spread rapidly, seemingly irreverent of social class or profession, which wiped out a large number of the kingdom's citizens and claimed the lives of the remaining royal family. After which, the kingdom entered its final death throes as the nobles beneath the royal family began tearing the kingdom apart trying to decide on a successor to the throne.

In the end, the losses were becoming too great with no clear indication of an end in sight, and so civil unrest from the peasants eventually forced the ruling caste to give up attempts at assuming the seat of power, settling as local landlords. Much of the formerly governed lands were lost to lawlessness, and those who were unhappy with following the will of landlords broke off and started free villages and towns away from the rule of the noble caste. Many such settlements failed without the protection of a local lord, and many still became havens for those escaping the law, or those belonging to fringe cults that would prefer to go unseen or forgotten by society at large.

The “Culling of Darkness”
During the time of intense turmoil after the death of the royal family, many believed the plague to be magical in origin, possibly a plot by the cults and vampire covens that lurked within the kingdom's borders. A group known as the Divine Order of Sylvantha (or simply “Divine Order”), a religiously based power with a military presence in the kingdom began recruiting volunteers to lead a crusade against the evils that were believed to be corrupting the land and its peoples. Countless volunteers joined their ranks to do anything they could to aid their kingdom in this time of plague and political unrest.

The Divine Order led a crusade and inquisition against anything that was deemed a threat or danger to the holy order of the land, including those afflicted with lycanthropy, those that followed fringe faiths, necromancers, and vampire covens. Countless people were driven into hiding as the order suppressed cults and financed the destruction and hunt of creatures of the night. Near the end of their crusade, the Divine Order attempted to use their influence to turn the kingdom into a Theocracy, however a number of vampire houses, lycanthropes, and cults banded together in a desperate alliance and retaliated, causing as much financial and political damage as possible to the members of the order, which ultimately prevented them from assuming authority over the kingdom. The blow to the order was not enough to end it however, and the order still remains a powerful presence throughout the darklands.

Perhaps ironically, their attempt to snuff out so many unrelated factions within Sylvanthan in turn gave rise to alliances between those groups that never would have existed prior, forming the Moonlit Covenant, a secret society made up primarily of dark magicians, vampires, lycanthropes, and their allies, who seek to subvert and undermine the efforts of the order at every turn.